Feds: Wash. man who threatened Obama had arsenal

The Associated Press •August 22, 2012 9:27 pm

SEATTLE — A Washington state man accused of threatening to kill President Barack Obama raised a pump-action shotgun at officers who came to his door, but one managed to grab the barrel before any shots were fired, a Secret Service agent wrote in charging papers Wednesday.

Special Agent Bryan Molnar and Federal Way police officer Andy Hensing went to Anton Caluori’s apartment on Tuesday afternoon, after a profanity-laced email landed in an FBI inbox stating: “I will kill the president!!!!! … ‘I’ want you to come and get me … you can’t afford to call my bluff.”

Caluori, 31, didn’t answer the door for several minutes when the officers knocked, but when he did, he was wearing a black bandolier filled with 12-gauge shotgun shells, Molnar wrote.

Attached to the bandolier was a large knife, the complaint said. A revolver rested in a holster on his ankle, and his right hand was behind his back.

The officers shouted for Caluori to show his hands, and when he finally did, he was holding a stockless, pistol-grip pump-action shotgun, the complaint said.

“Officer Hensing grabbed the gun barrel as Caluori lifted it in our direction, and I grabbed Caluori’s person,” Molnar wrote.

Caluori struggled, but ultimately they disarmed him, he said. The gun was loaded to capacity, including a round in the chamber, and the safety was off.

Caluori was charged Wednesday with making a threat against the president, which carries up to five years in prison, and with assaulting a federal officer, which carries up to 20 years.